Living, Travelling on a yacht with large values of cash, gold, art, antiques? How would customs work?

Valuables onboard must be declared and can easily be confiscated (as the vessel itself).
It's much safer to store your precious physical possessions on land.

OKboomer said:

I've seen some boats having multimillion dollar paintings on their walls. So the excuse of having an expensive piece of art as decoration of boat or cash in safe as being part of that boat (or just for expenses) will not fly ?

Nobody is going to question pieces of furniture. Cash is a different story: you are supposed to declare it to customs and it's impossible to hide if you are subject to an inspection.

You can choose to only moor in friendly ports (Monaco, Montenegro, Malta, most of the Caribbean, et cetera) and avoid others. Another way around this is to anchor far enough away and have a smaller boat take you to/from shore. Not necessarily international waters, just at a decent distance that you don't draw attention.

Precious metals and safes are heavy. I bet there's some interesting math to be done to figure out the breaking point at which the gold you're carrying costs you more in fuel required to move the ship than the value of the gold.

OKboomer said:

In light of all the doomsday discussions and more and more governments becoming cleptocracies, how would living on a yacht work as an option ? In particular curious, if you have a large safety box with big volumes of cash, gold or have art on your yacht, etc, how would that work when crossing borders (leaving and entering)? Would the same limits apply (10k cash or Bullion need declaration), can your stuff be confiscated with some excuse? Would a yacht with lots of valuables be a viable option for an uncertain world or is it just a foolish way to lose a lot of assets?

Anyone has any experience?

Bitcoin is your friend here.

Keep the rest in a safe box at land, ideally where you have a passport / residence permit from.

OKboomer said:

But you can't enter Monaco without entering the EU/France, can you ? Interestingly Monaco, is not part of EU, but it's in customs union with France anyway, or do you literally when approaching French Riviera try and go at exactly 90° to coastline to try and navigate precisely in the thin strip of water that would be territorial waters of Monaco (that also raises an interesting question of whether you'd need a Schengen visa (for non-EU), since you'd strictly speaking not be entering Schengen area (to my knowledge, Monaco is de facto Schengen, but not de jure). Nobody has ever been able to give me answers to that question.

It depends on how high profile of a target you are. Yachts come and go across France's waters all the time to enter Monaco and for the most part no one bats an eye.

OKboomer said:

Malta is EU, or do they have a different enforcement?

Malta is technically supposed to follow the same rules and regulations as all over the EU. In reality, checks are very lax and limited.

Same story in Cyprus.

OKboomer said:

Montenegro customs are very anal when it comes to checking cars. Would they not be the same when it comes to boats?

Go to Tivat and see what goes on in Porto Montenegro. There's also a very conveniently located airport, which IIRC is big enough to handle up to mid-size jetliners. A good place to enter by boat and then hop on a private jet to other parts of the world.

OKboomer said:

The Caribbean is so diverse. Some places I would struggle trusting government officials at all...

The more corrupt a place is, the further you can get with discreet financial incentives. A lot depends on how this hypothetical doomsday actually plays out and what the factions are.

OKboomer said:

So I guess boat v real estate for having your precious stuff with you is also not such a viable option. The logic was supposed to be as follows:, if suddenly something bad happens, your stuff is already on your boat, you hop on and sail away...

It's not a bad idea, but it has many downsides that are unique to the maritime world. Boats can sink. You have to pay much, much more for maintenance and usage. If you go for a pure sailing yacht, you don't have to worry about fuel costs much. But then you need to schedule your travels around winds. A motorsailer has the best and the worst of both.